


On Schedule

by whetstone



Category: Big Bang (Band), K-pop
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-20
Updated: 2013-04-20
Packaged: 2017-12-08 23:17:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/767238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whetstone/pseuds/whetstone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chance meetings at music shows.</p>
            </blockquote>





	On Schedule

**Author's Note:**

> for reference: [iu doing lies](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JH1YiwJYdIo) and [fangirling over YB. also...written before yb became...the way he is now haha.](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pe9_VKsph8c)

She’s so cute it almost makes his teeth hurt.

The video that plays behind her while she sings has gigantic walking marshmallows and mustaches and top hats and bright colors; she wears high socks when she performs and when she does a twisty sort of move the skin of her thighs strains at the elastic, all pale and soft-looking through the dressing room’s high-definition TV. She doesn’t stumble on her lyrics even though she’s singing live, but she does get breathless and she hiccups on the second to the last line of the chorus about one minute in.

Youngbae’s not much for bubblegum pop, so instead of watching the whole performance he runs through his dance moves one more time. They’re all muscle memory by now, but he’s antsy; the repetition makes the knot in his chest loosen at least a little. His sneakers squeak on the shiny waxed floor and leave black track marks that he tries to scuff away with the toe of one Nike. He does ten pushups, clapping between each one and ten more when the PD doesn’t come and get him right away.

He hates interviews. They make him nervous. He confessed to Daesung a long time ago that for him, they were worse than actually performing; he didn’t have enough funny stories or gags to keep things moving. Instead, he smiles a lot and nods and talks earnestly about how hard he’s been working and all the projects his bandmates are involved in. he plays into every joke until they bring up her crush on him.

He’s never sure about these things. He heard Hyun Suk talking once about how girls are encouraged to talk about their ‘favorite idols’ to make them look relatable to the public. He wonders if they just pick names out of a hat or something, maybe look through the roster of appearances from the different companies before the burst of laughter from the audience jolts him back to the present.

She’s blushing even through her makeup. The host is talking in a loud voice, his card flapping in his hand as he gestures between them. He asks her what she likes about Taeyang and she stutters and scoots back in her chair; Youngbae tears his eyes away from her legs, which are crossing and uncrossing, and plasters a smile on his face, stares at a space near the top of her head.

“He has a nice voice,” she says, finally. “And he’s a very good dancer.” Her eyes flick upwards and then towards him for a second. They both start when their gazes meet and the audience _oohs_. He wonders if his groupmates are watching and how bad he’s going to get it later.

“Anything else?”

She laughs a little too loudly. “Um...”

“Tell Taeyang-sshi about your schedule.”

“Oh!” she says. “I...” Her fingers play at the bottom of her microphone, causing a hiss of static. “Taeyang-sshi, I heard you were getting ready for a comeback and I was too. I asked if they could move up my schedules so we could have them at the same time.” She doesn’t giggle this time, just shrugs a white-sleeved shoulder and flashes him an impish sort of half-grin that gets the corners of his mouth flying upwards and the heat rushing up his cheeks. The other guests laugh and nudge each other and Youngbae kind of just wants to die.

During the commercial break he drinks water (not too much, he doesn’t want to get bloated or anything). He can feel eyes on him so he stretches out the time with his manager. Yawning, he holds a play fight, punching half-heartedly at the soft expanse of his stomach. “Youngbae-yah,” he says, “that girl is looking at you.” another punch. “She’s pretty.” Just one more, for good luck. His manager winces and rubs at his belly and claps him on the shoulder, gestures him back to his seat.

They bring the guitar out after.

Her arm fits right along the curve of the acoustic. While people talk around her she noodles at the strings, a softer smile playing along her lips. When they ask her to play something she scrunches up her face and thinks for a second, strumming absently.

The notes should be familiar to him but they’re not, not with a voice like that. She’s singing in a husky, lower register than earlier and her shoulders roll, sleeve slipping down to nip at her collarbone when she knocks at the wood to keep the rhythm going. Her eyes close halfway when she hits the higher notes and her lips fit perfect around the lyrics he’s sung a million times, syllables rolling around the peach of her mouth like they’re something to be savored.

“I’m Jieun,” she says later. There’s a huge grey sweatshirt over all of her clothes but she’s still wearing the socks. The hood covers most of her hair. They both bow, heads almost smacking against each other. When she laughs, he knocks at the brim of his hat and says “I’m Taeyang, er, Youngbae,” and she says “I know” and bounces on her heels; the sweater rides up to show the bottoms of her thighs. He looks away fast; the smile drops halfway from her face and she stops moving.

“So I guess I’ll see you later,” she says, chewing at her lip.

He nods.

“I liked your song. ‘Wedding Dress,’ I mean. Not that I didn’t like the other one, I just liked... you know. This one better. It’s nice. I mean, they’re both nice, I just...” Her lips move wordlessly, hands stuffing themselves into her hoodie pocket. “I like both of them,” she finishes lamely.

He nods again.

“I have to go now,” she says, half to herself. “They’re probably looking for me.”

Youngbae raises an eyebrow. “What?”

“I snuck out of the room,” she replies. “To say hi.”

“Ah.” She’s still standing there, even though the rooms are draining themselves of people, some of them probably _her_ people. “You should... go before you get in trouble then.”

“Okay.” The smile is all the way gone now. One hand leaves the pocket to wave, and she’s halfway down the hallway when he calls after her.

“I liked your cover.”

“Oh!” She turns back around to beam at him. Her eyes are lit. “Did you? I do other covers too, but I think I like ‘Lies’ the best. It’s the most fun to play, there’s a little bit of finger work in the beginning. They always ask me to do ‘Gee’, but it’s no fun when you’re already a girl and singing girl songs. Besides --” she stops mid-sentence and blushes. The mostly-empty corridor is echoing with her voice. She coughs, walks back down towards him so she can speak easier. “I learned ‘Look Only at Me’ too, but I don’t think they’d want me to play it, really.”

“I don’t think they would either.” Behind them, Youngbae’s dressing room door opens with a discreet creak before it shuts again. “But you probably do a better job than me.”

“Oh, no, it’s your song, of course you’re the best.” She chews at her lip, lost in thought. Then she snaps her fingers. “Sometimes I’m on the radio. Maybe I can play it there. Or I can record it for you. Or --”

Her ringtone is another acoustic song, an English one he doesn’t recognize. She checks the screen and frowns. “I don’t want you to get in trouble,” he says. “Go ahead and go. We have the same schedules anyway, right?”

She flushes pink. “Right.”

“And um... I’d like to hear that song. My song. You know. Whenever,” he nods once and smiles, watching the way her eyes flit across his mouth and the angles of his jaw. The phone is ringing and ringing. “Whenever you play it.”

“Okay.”

“Go,” he presses. “Before they get worried.”

\--------------------------------------

She does ‘Lies’ whenever she’s asked now. He’s almost used to it, as much as he can be, but sometimes there’s a sharp little inhale or slow sigh in between parts and all he can think about is the hallway and all the hallways she corners him in and rambles about her radio work and their endless schedules and books and songs she likes and how he should get a different haircut and how one day he’ll just do it. The makeup on her legs will get all over his jeans when he gets her against the door and she’ll hiccup into his mouth, the inside of hers would be as soft as her hair looks and when he touches her, her voice would drop, none of that fake baby stuff her company makes her do, just --

“Taeyang-sshi?”

“Yes?” He’s used to snapping back to attention.

“The production on your song...”

He goes into the familiar spiel about Teddy, about his own forays into composing, and the woman is nodding and Jieun is picking at the skin of her fingers but making sure it’s out of the view of the camera. She doesn’t look at him.

He lingers in the hallway after the interview but only for a few minutes. When she doesn’t show he jumps on his manager’s back and gets an arm around his shoulders and finally leans against him on the couch, watching people pack up his clothes and extra shoes. He shrugs at the questioning look he gets and sends Jiyong a text message telling him to remind Seunghyun not to miss his Japanese lesson.

That night, half-delirious with exhaustion, he goes through his bedroom routine. He balls up his laundry and drops it into the basket, rubbing a towel against the wet spike of his hair. He does twenty sit-ups and wanders into the hallway: there’s a sliver of computer blue emanating from Jiyong’s doorframe, but the hostel is silent.

In the kitchen he digs through the fruit and boxes of Chinese takeout for a bottle of water. He sits and scrolls through the contacts of his phone and gets through two games of solitaire before he shakes himself, pocketing the device and striding back to his room. He leaves the light on even as he lies down, thumbing his ring around one finger, scratching at Boss’ head with his free hand.

The vibration knocks him out of his doze. Boss barks once, blinking at his owner reproachfully. Youngbae fixes him with a frown, rubs the back of one ear before pulling his cell back out. Worry lines itself onto his forehead: it’s someone he doesn’t recognize. Making a mental note to tell his parents he’s changing his number again, he picks up.

“Hello?”

“Youngbae oppa?”

“Who is this?”

The line is quiet for a little while. “This is Jieun.”

He sits up fast. Boss stares at him from his swaddling of comforter. “... How did you get my number?”

“Jiyong-sshi gave it to me,” she says. “He had an interview at my station. Don’t be mad at him, okay?”

Youngbae leans over and rummages through his nightstand. He pulls out a stuffed frog, which he tosses to Boss. He can picture Jiyong’s stupid Cheshire cat smile, hear that voice he uses to talk to girls and he can’t help but roll his eyes. “I’m not mad.”

“I’m glad.”

The silence stretches out. Youngbae thinks of Seungri’s calculated overconfidence, the dry wit of Seunghyun when he converses to impress and wishes he had either of those right now. Instead, he listens to the crackle of dead airtime and the sound of his dog shaking out a toy.

“Remember I said I was gonna play your song?” she says.

“Yeah,” he breathes out.

“I was going to do it tonight and then text you, but I didn’t.” Boss has the frog in a headlock, one arm dangerously close to being ripped off. “I thought it was too close.”

“What?” he says, and winces at how rough he sounds. He coughs and tries again. “Close?”

“It’s, um...” She stops. It’s weird, he thinks. Usually there are words pouring out of her, all thrown together. “It feels too close.” She’s almost whispering now. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”

“What?”

“I’ll call you tomorrow,” she repeats.

“Alright.” She hangs up before he gets the entire word out and he stares at the now-blank touchscreen. Boss lays a paw on his leg and whines, eyes huge.

\--------------------------------------

The dog pees on the tree and then on the lamppost and on a bench and then the low concrete wall Youngbae is standing against. He pees and pees and pees, marking his territory even though Youngbae is freezing and his breath is coming out in long steamy streams. He jumps up and down: when it’s this cold, he thinks, thirty seconds feels like ten minutes. He hopes that Boss doesn’t have to do the number two, since he didn’t bring a doggie bag and they’d have to go back in before they come out again and all he wants to do is sleep--

“Hello?” He hadn’t saved her number yet, only felt the phone vibrate once, but he knows it’s her.

“It’s too close,” she says, “when I sing your song.” A breath. “The lyrics are in my mouth but they were in yours first. It’s like kissing.”

Youngbae makes a noise. He hopes it sounds encouraging.

“I was thinking,” she says, “you know when you sing, your mouth gets dry depending on if it’s fast or slow, so I was thinking... if they went from your mouth to mine, they would taste different.”

 _You’d think she’d be shy about it_ , he thinks dazedly.

“So I couldn’t sing it on the air. I felt weird.”

“Softer,” he chokes out.

“What?”

“In your mouth. They’d be soft.” Boss is jogging in slow circles around him, chasing a wayward leaf. “Acoustics are soft. And you slow down the tempo. So it’d be slow.”

“I’ve never kissed anyone before,” she confesses.

“I’ve only kissed one person,” he replies. “And it was for a music video.” He swallows, taking in a huge breath of the frigid air. “It embarrasses me when I watch it.”

She laughs. He’s grinning like an idiot in the middle of a parking lot sprinkled with dog pee and he feels like he’s got the number one single already, sparked a dance craze maybe. “I’m going to look it up when I get home,” she says, her voice warm. It makes the cold inside his lungs melt away.

“I’m going to kiss you,” he blurts out. “When I see you next time.” She makes a startled sort of sound and he can hear the shift of the phone against the shell of her ear, her hair. “I mean, if you want me to.”

“I do. I’ll sing your song,” she says, a little breathless. “I’ll make you a cd.”

“Not on the radio, though.”

“Of course not.”

“And you’ll make me a cd.”

“I will, oppa.” He shivers then, grips at the dog leash with numb fingers. “I have to go now, though. I’m done for the day.” A pause. “I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”

“Okay.” When he hangs up he rubs at the screen with his shirt and fidgets. Adrenaline is coursing through his veins and he pumps a fist, jumps into the air--

and trips.

Boss licks at his paw and stares at him, unruffled. The tangle of leash he’s wound around his master starts somewhere around his calves and ends around the tops of his sneakers. Youngbae is sprawled on the ground and he stares up at the sky with the backs of his white shoes blackened and a smile bigger than Jiyong’s when he got his first Chanel cuff.

The sound of a screen opening shakes him out of his reverie. He turns (as much as he can with his legs all bound up) and sees his best friend hanging out of his window, face halfway between derision and amusement.

“Dong Youngbae!” He yells. “Get inside before you catch a cold!”

Youngbae sits up, begins untangling himself from his dog-made prison. He can hear Jiyong snickering above him. When he stands, he faces him and rolls his eyes, gathering boss into his arms. “Leave the door open for me, I’m coming up.”

“Youngbae-yah,” he screams out, ignoring his reproachful look. “Guess what?”

“What?”

“She’s sixteen!”

Youngbae starts, jerking his head away from his dog’s fur to stare at Jiyong, who shrugs and props both elbows against the window’s frame.

“I mean, dating-wise you’re the same age, so I guess it’s not that bad.”

“I hate you,” he sighs.


End file.
